Sir Nevill Mott

Sir Nevill Mott

Mott, Sir Nevill, 1905-96, British physicist. A professor at the Univ. of Bristol (1933-54) and the Univ. of Cambridge (1954-71), Mott won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1977 for a lifetime of research into the magnetic and electrical properties of noncrystalline solids. He shared the award with P. W. Anderson and J. H. Van Vleck, who had pursued independent research. Mott's accomplishments include explaining theoretically the effect of light on a photographic emulsion and outlining the transition of substances from metallic to nonmetallic states. He wrote A Life in Science (1995).

The Cavendish Laboratory is the University of Cambridge's Department of Physics, and is part of the university's School of Physical Sciences. It was opened in 1874 as a teaching laboratory and was initially located on the New Museums Site, Free School Lane, in the centre of Cambridge. After perennial space problems, it moved to its present site in West Cambridge in the early 1970s. Physical Chemistry (originally the department of Colloid Science under Eric Rideal) left the Cavendish site earlier, subsequently locating with chemistry in Lensfield Road.

Biology

The Cavendish Laboratory has had an important influence on biology, mainly through the application of X-ray crystallography to the study of structures of biological molecules. Francis Crick already worked in the Medical Research Council Unit, headed by Max Perutz and housed in the Cavendish Laboratory, when James Watson came from the United States and they made a breakthrough in discovering the structure of DNA. For their work while in the Cavendish Laboratory, they were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962, together with Maurice Wilkins of King's College London, himself a graduate of St. John's College, Cambridge.

Groups

Areas in which the Laboratory has been very influential since 1950 include:-